My Days as a Scout in a Matriarchal World

A shut-in woman games through the night and wakes in a matriarchal world. At first, she thinks she can have a few children and then lie flat, living out her life in comfort. But then war comes. With no other choice, her three fathers decide they can’t protect their only daughter and try to flee to the capital in search of my birth father, Liu Boqing, a refined and noble man I’ve never met. Supposedly, he’s the young master of the Marquis of Ningde’s household. Tragically, my eldest father, a scholar, and my second father, a cloth shopkeeper, are killed by marauding soldiers along the way. My third father draws on his experience as a hunter to help the Minzhou army find water. The commander then wants to recruit him as a scout. With more than two thousand kilometers still to go before we reach the capital, Minzhou is being looted and pillaged by Wu forces. He can’t get me to the capital on his own, so he demands to take me along as a scout. Otherwise, he won’t join. The commander looks at me, a thin thirteen-year-old, and says, “You’re too young, and far too pretty. You probably can’t handle scout work.” My third father replies, “Then we’ll take our leave.” The Minzhou army has been sent from another province of Yun to repel Wu’s invasion. They don’t know the terrain and desperately need local scouts, so the commander reluctantly agrees.